Let me add my $.02 cents in re: alloy steel. In 1905 Parker Bros. started inserting a hard (but not hardened) steel wear pad into the angle slot in the barrel lump were the toggel bolt held the barrel in place when the gun was closed. Before 1905 the bolt rode directly against the angle slot in the barrel lump resulting in the top lever going left with wear and consequent metal loss. The barrel lump could not be case hardened and, thus, the hardness of the bolt had to match the softness of the lump. One might ask why it took until 1905 for the gun works to figure out the simple solution to mitigate wear--a hard insert and a hard bolt. The answer: alloy--vanadium--steel. And here's the story I heard...
I was at the EAA fly-in at Oshkosh WI, talking to the guys from the Smithsonian who were recreating a replica of the Wright Bros ca.1902 aircraft. Keep in mind that the brothers Wright really didn't build a sustained-flight aircraft till 1908. In this context we discussed the radical changes in post 1905 engines being the charm, and how Henry Ford had been at an autocar race in France, and observed the taking apart of a new type engine with the crankshaft journals, connecting rods, wrist pins, cam and valve stems made of a new secret process alloy of steel. Vanadium Steel. The cat was soon out of the bag and vanadium steel became available in the USA. Ford's 1908 Model T would not have been reliable without vanadium steel engine hard parts; the Wright brothers would not have been able to fly for prolonged periods of time without the new alloy; and Parker Bros adopted the new technology to mitigate wear on the Old Reliable's breech-bolts.
Thirty years later when Remington bought Parker, the double-fit bone charcoal case hardening process was still "state-of-the-art" in Meriden. Meanwhile, Winchester 21s were of an alloy steel that could be single fit. Parkers had the case colors; Winchesters had the black funeral gun finish. Parkers and 21s are often compared, unfairly, I think. Parkers represent the metalurgy as it existed in the first days of crude flying machines barely getting off the ground; Winchester 21s are are of the post-Lindbergh era of trans-Atlantic flight. The metals, not the skilled gunmakers, made the difference. EDM
